Gleb Kalyuzhny

The walls of the rehabilitation center were painted white, which sometimes blended with the clothes of the people arriving. Some entered casually, others with embarrassment, and still others with fear.

The room for individual sessions was small: light-colored walls, large windows, a bookcase, two chairs, a table, and a paper cup of cold tea. Gleb sat hunched over, fiddling with his phone. He waited. There would be no psychologist today—only his mentor. His head was filled with the usual chaos of thoughts.

He still couldn't believe he was here. Two years ago, he couldn't even imagine this: back then, he'd considered the younger kids boring, yet he'd been involved in dangerous endeavors—for example, organizing a dangerous club where people almost got hurt. Now, he was part of an "adult" rescue system.

Now his life is a circle: the clinic, pills that make his tongue feel like cotton wool, group therapy where people like him try to tell him how bad they feel.

The strangest thing for Gleb was his mentor—a girl not much younger than him, smiling, with a quiet, calm voice. She said she'd been through the same thing several years ago, but Gleb couldn't believe it: she seemed too whole, not broken like him.

During their first meeting, she gave him her phone number and invited him to ask any questions at any time. But Gleb was used to hoarding everything: all his life, he'd been saving something—first money for a bike, then school debts, then questions that consumed him from within.

They hadn't seen each other for two weeks: the mentor had left due to her grandfather's death. Now she was returning to work—primarily with Gleb, her first patient.

Gleb knew they had to talk, but his thoughts wouldn't clear. He felt like he was in quicksand. He was tormented by withdrawal from the "fun" he'd become compelled to avoid going crazy. How could he admit he could break down? How could he forget the feeling that the whole world was his and he was king—even if only for an hour? He asked himself these questions every day.